


lapsus memoriae

by SouthernBird



Series: Shangst Week 2017 [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternative Perspective, Angst, Coran Thinks Too Much, Grief, Implied Death, M/M, Original Character Death(s), POV Outsider, Past Lives, Seen Too Much, Shangst Week 2017, Variation of Black and Blue AU, War, implied trauma, inner thoughts, inner turmoil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 16:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11383671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernBird/pseuds/SouthernBird
Summary: It’s almost nerve wracking how Lance smiles at Shiro, how he speaks so highly and so kindly of the leader of their pride. He might not understand some of the insane Earth lingo, but the intent is there, all in vivacious blues and over-reeling fondness galore, that Lance’s heart is set on Shiro, that there is not a force that could ever guide him away, but so help the Altean, he might have to. It would be easy enough if Shiro was true in his tense vexations, was assured in the way that he speaks to Lance as though they were truly leader and soldier.The final issue, however, will not be Lance; it will be Shiro.--Shangst Week 2017 || Day Eight: Free Day/AU





	lapsus memoriae

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of a variation on an AU I wrote last year I've dubbed [Black and Blue Verse](http://archiveofourown.org/series/589879) or 'Bruise Verse' where the culmination of Zarkon's actions were tightly based around the death of his own Blue Paladin. 
> 
> Written from Coran's perspective to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hstsdrrd_Gk) and [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgY-YonTzQ8) since the poor bastard has seen too much for his own good.
> 
> And, after all; history is doomed to repeat itself.

Coran is a man of simple desires.

 

Or, rather, he is now, more a burdened soul that endeavors to see the vibrancy of colors and of life where there truly may be none found. Simple things are very, well, simple, though they can be very grand and very daunting all the same. Desires to rest, to know peace, to go home, to _see_ , they’re all quite contrary to the matter at hand, but they are his to cling to, his to dream for. 

 

What he wishes for more than all else is that he no longer be a man of knowledge and of history. He craves ignorance in the truths that are burdens themselves, truths that are like planets upon planets of guilt that weighs upon his shoulders and his back, keep him down to the lowest inch towards the ground. He should be a wiser fellow, understand that with age comes truth, comes the inevitable conclusion that there are things in life that are not fair, that are not right, and that those truths has a horrific way of being reborn in endless cycles of not hindering the warning signs. 

 

The alarms in his head ring cloud and clear, a cacophony of bells that refuse to quiet, even in the recesses of the ‘night’ routine where he wanders in the hope to find some muted incoherency. However, the bells, they toll and they bang and they are ceaseless because he sees it all happening all over again, see the same bricks that were laid before lead the path to devastation. 

 

Zarkon was once a good man; he was a King, much like Coran’s Alfor, and Galra and Altea knew each other as allies and comrades, not as enemies and traitors, in a sense. Coran figures even to this tick that the old tyrant still has as much personality as a rock with a little more emphasis on the maniacal megalomaniac side of things, but still rather dull. 

 

Yet, years ago, that rock compounded under pressure of a million tons to create a brilliant diamond, shining in soft sunbeams whenever Zarkon had been around the a certain Altean that presided in the role of Blue Paladin; Coran knew this, knows it well, can still hear the musicians play their songs while the ballrooms swarmed with dancers, Galra and Altean alike. Who better to observe at those grand dances a stepping around each other, a shifting sway of bodies that were both unsure and enamored from heralded Black and Blue Paladins than a King’s advisor?

 

Honestly, there is so much of the old Blue Paladin within Lance; selflessness, empathy, and a particular inclination for impeccable hygiene. In the quieter moments in the bay of the Castle, Coran would fathom that both Blues had quite the same temperament, though he does not suppose Lance would ever reach his predecessors level of sass; that is a feat that no current existence could probably ever claim, after all… 

 

As the King of Altea’s advisor, Coran’s position permitted an internal glance into affairs of diplomats and royalty alike. Back then, when he was naive and believed in a hopeful future alongside his Galra counterparts, he witnessed the buddings of Zarkon’s relationship with his Blue, however hushed in tones they tried to keep it, how that dull old thing would even smile kindly, how even a man terrible in his rage now could once be so gentle to another, could cradle in his claws a flower to fragile and adore it all the same. 

 

Love stories like that, especially ones that blossom amidst fires and conflicts, are precious tales, the ones that mothers tell their little ones, the ones that take their tomes in history and last for eternities abound. 

 

Tragedy, though, has a way of cutting away the pages in the books, leaving nothing but threadbare bindings and trembling hands. It is perhaps a golden opportunity to know love, but to watch that love be taken away? 

 

In spite of their battles, of their deepest bonds and their efforts… Blue was just another Altean casualty, snatched away by maws of war’s rampage long before their time— it was not fair, for anyone, to watch something horrific occur before them all, let alone the Black Paladin, to watch the heart of his team be ripped away, the seams torn and burned and left for dead. Flesh burned, bones broken and body disfigured; how could anyone not pity the dead?

 

Zarkon was a changed man after that day, lonely and heartbroken and _bitter_. 

 

Bitterness may harden a man, but a broken heart is irreparable, Coran learned on the day that the alarms wailed loud and steady in his ears, on the day that Zarkon set his sights on taking Voltron for his and his alone. 

 

But, oh, Coran knows now, comprehends on the highest planes how desperately Zarkon desired the days of old, longed for the dances with his little Blue, their hands— Zarkon’s larger claw delicately holding Blue’s small hand — joined as they approached the jubilee of the gala. Coran wonders darkly if Zarkon has forgotten Blue’s voice, his face, how the dimples of his cheeks deepened whenever blue eyes caught sight of the Black Paladin every time. They were so adoring to one another, so steadfast in their loyalties and their faithfulness, but fate is a cruel master, merciless and unsympathetic. 

 

A small mercy can be found in the lack of misfortune to see death of every planet that has met with the wrath of the Galra Emperor, but he has been fortunate (not so, not in the least) enough to see how a man can turn deadly with only the snap of a terrible moment,  a moment that is so brutal that the elder is sure that Zarkon might have died that day himself, left himself behind with only a corpse to lead a barrage hellbent on destroying and on conquering to fill the void— it has to be an existence with nothing to hope for, just shallow ideals of control and of falsities. 

 

With age, with experience of life, comes the compelling voice that tells him over and over again to swear on Alfor’s grave, wherever it may drift, that Coran not allow it again. 

 

But, it has already begun, the first petals unfolding, the first stars flickering, foretelling a romance that may end the same, that may ultimately destroy what’s left of the known universe; there is Shiro, Black, and there is Lance, Blue, tumbling over each other, not nearly as graceful as the Paladins before them, but still sure in their waking affections. 

 

It’s almost nerve wracking how Lance smiles at Shiro, how he speaks so highly and so kindly of the leader of their pride. He might not understand some of the insane Earth lingo, but the intent is there, all in vivacious blues and over-reeling fondness galore, that Lance’s heart is set on Shiro, that there is not a force that could ever guide him away, but so help the Altean, he might have to. It would be easy enough if Shiro was true in his tense vexations, was assured in the way that he speaks to Lance as though they were truly leader and soldier. 

 

The final issue, however, will not be Lance; it will be Shiro.

 

Alfor once mentioned on a swap moon that a good man observes everything and nothing all at once, then acts. It’s infuriating enough, absolutely frustrating to every sense imaginable that Coran must stand by as Lance tries over and over, but the worse is Shiro, oh yes, it’s the Black Paladin, a parallel to Zarkon with his wandering eyes to watch Lance, to gaze upon his Blue from afar as though if he gets too close, the Blue Paladin will fall into pieces and drift into the encompassing light of moons and of stars. 

 

It’s a pain old and trembling that Coran feels, bothersome slips of memories to warn, but it’s just another part of simple desires that cuts away at any resolve to remain everything and nothing at once, just like his mighty— and dead, he’s _dead_ , like his son and their entire race, all burned while he dreamed of voidless white and did _nothing_ to prevent the calamity— King. 

 

Like a listless tune with naught a sense of enthusiasm, it’s a melody sung by history to remind the advisor that romance is a doomed endeavor, and this romance should never recur. 

 

Yet, it’s the blossoms that still him, the secret glances and hidden meanings within words of praise or lectures on discipline. Blue, oh, old Blue, they did the same, faltered despite their greatest efforts, but not due to any lack of skill on his part, but instead a passion all of their own. In spite of all that has occurred between the once alliance between Altea and Galra, the advisor will still declare that the man he knew as the Black Paladin in the dust-laden days was just a good man that fell too hard, dug his lover’s grave with his own spade when he faltered just _once_. 

 

After all, love is a fortune, bearing a cornucopia with sempiternal blessings that would give adoring lovers no place for worries; love is a weakness, a weapon, a self-inflicted laceration that festers into dismal aches that eats into the marrow, into lamenting revelations whispering between trembling lips within the haven of a dark room. 

 

Yet, love is likewise a shameful sonnet when he must watch pining eyes drawn to turned backs, when he must see touches that never meet. Love is a poison corrupt, a thing of lifeless eyes and slow decay, of blue funeral marches that parade with a too young Altean laying in a casket as heartbroken Galra is bent over the memorial in grief. 

 

How the Ancients heralded the emotion, how they sang proses of star drifts and petal breezes, how the wise Ancients that he once respected do not seem so wise now, but now appear to be merely blinded optimists that existed in a time without the truths of life to sadden their voices. 

 

For time asleep, ten thousand years must be a blink of an eye, a sudden gasp that shakes the entire universe before it rocks into a stillness so stark that it must surely be a shame to have ever not lived it. If losing every thing to the midst of a broken tyrant that wanted to fill the black void of his dead heart with cups of violent victories meant to know a wisdom more poignant than what they claimed, the Ancients then would be more use to a getting too-old man that has nothing a handful of possessions he longs to keep. 

 

But, their songs would be such a comfort now, an assuring hand along the firm (yet shaking) foundation of his shoulders, the line every bit as straight (yet crumbling) as he was commanded to do in the Altean military, still ingrained with the discipline and the magnificence of his culture and his people, still hoping that before his eyes cloud over with age and his hands are too withered to hold a tool, that he will see some half semblance of his home once more. 

 

Home is there at times, if he deceives himself enough, if he lies to himself more over a thousand times before the facets of self-depiction becomes truth, in the colors of the armors his new Paladins wear, in the gleam of lights in Lance’s blue eyes— so much like his predecessor’s, it’s almost unbearable to realize— when Coran confides in a bit of old wisdom that is just ripe for the situation, in the longing gazes that weave a story of disaster. 

 

And, oh, what a story it will be, the same old tome that Coran has lived in what is and always a tragedy unbound, a mournful cataclysm to give birth to another beast of raging screams and lost cries— a beast that will only befriend the coldness of metal and of force while the once warm body that captured his affection is lowered into the bleak, churning waters of an eternity lost. 

 

Let the story conclude, let the tale cease, he prays, when Shiro, adorned in the vestiges of a Paladin of Black, cradles his Blue Paladin for one last grievous march towards a final resting place. Let history complete its own tactless endeavor of star-crossed lovers and of bludgeoning wars to instead provide a hollow peace that hums with static silence. 

 

For surely, as a black night that once loved a blue day, as each star will once flare out and grow _cold_ , there most assuredly must be an _end_. 

 

 

 

 

(But a man with only the idea of wisdom cannot fathom the flagitious errors of assuming as such, and it will not be a light of azure that flickers and fades in a carol of fire and smoke, but rather a loss of black that will birth the tumultuous rage of a blue storm—.

 

For beasts that are born of broken hearts are unpredictable and awful things to see last.)


End file.
